Here, for anyone interested in the history, are some comments on the German command in Lithuania as pertains to EK3 and the extermination program:
Shortly after the German invasion of the USSR, in Vilnius, Lithuanian nationalist units began seizing Jews in the city streets and taking them to Ponary, where they were executed. EK9, commanded by Filbert, arrived in the city around 2 July 1941. On 30 June Filbert had informed his men that their duties in the USSR would be in the spirit of National Socialism and would involve killing Jews (at Filbert’s trial, this was explained as a Führer order, as other EG leaders claimed in the NMT Einsatzgruppen trial). In Vilnius Filbert decided to utilize the same killing site which had been used for a few murder actions carried out by Lithuanian squads – at Ponary. EK9 carried out executions of Jews at Ponary beginning 4 July. According to Jäger, about 4,000 Jews were killed in such early German actions in Lithuania prior to the activity of his EK3 there. (Yitzak Arad, Ghetto in Flames, pp 66-68) Jewish sources, including Kruk and Dworzecki, describe the snatching of Jews on the streets during this time, and Kruk recorded information that those snatched were being killed at Ponary by some point in July.*
The murder system was refined quickly, and by 8 July large numbers of Jews were being taken from Vilnius and killed, probably at Ponary at this time, certainly there by later in the month. The EG situation report for 15 July already spoke of a “daily liquidation quota” for EK9. (Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector, eds., The Einsatzgruppen Reports, p 29) Sakowicz’s first journal entry, for 11 July, recorded these killings, too, describing how “I discover that many Jews have been ‘transported’ to the forest. And suddenly they shoot them.” (Kazimierz Sakowicz, Ponary Diary, 1941-1943, p 11) Sakowicz listed about a dozen additional shooting actions, averaging about 300 victims each, during the month of July, all before the arrival of EK3 in the area. Sakowicz recorded his observation that “Only the Shaulists do the shooting and guarding.” (p 12) Shaulists was shorthand for Sauliu Sajunga, a paramilitary rifle unit composed of Lithuanian nationalists. (p 12)
In early July, the Germans changed their administration of the city of Vilnius, ousting local collaborators and installing a military government. Local police and partisan units were subordinated to the German Order Police, whilst a militia, called the Ypatingi Buriai, made up of local riflemen and referred to as the Shaulists by Sakowicz, was formed and attached the 2nd week of July to EK9. (Arad, Ghetto in Flames, pp 70-71; Yitzak Arad, introduction to Ponary Diary, pp 6-8) Two EG operational reports described this placement of the Lithuanian paramilitary under the command of the EK. First, the EG report dated 7 July 1941 noted that “The Lithuanian police branches in Vilnius, subordinated to the Einsatzkommando, were given the task of drawing up the names of Jews in Vilnius. . . . Subsequently, searches and arrests were made and 54 Jews were liquidated on July 4 and 93 were liquidated on July 5” (the combined force also searched out Communists). (Arad, Krakowski, Spector, p 15) In addition, the report for 13 July described this command structure: “In Vilnius by July 8th the local Einsatzkommando liquidated 321 Jews. The Lithuanian Ordnungsdienst which was placed under the Einsatzkommando after the Lithuanian political police had been dissolved was instructed to take part in the liquidation of the Jews. 150 Lithuanian officials were assigned to this task. They arrested the Jews and put them into concentration camps where they were subjected the same day to special treatment.” (Arad, Krakowski, Spector, p 22) (Are we to believe that Colonel Jäger and the other EG officers were mistaken in understanding whether they or the Lithuanians were in control?) This command structure was instituted before Jäger’s EK3 arrived in the area, but the unit described in this report served first under EK9 and then supported EK3 when Jäger arrived in August. The “150” (approximately) men executed the special tasks with regard to Jews and the overall security operation assigned both EKs. Sakowicz referred to the men in this unit as “Shaulists,” as we’ve seen above. A number of witnesses in the city of Vilnius witnessed a subunit of this group rounding up Jews there; Sakowicz witnessed other subunits doing the shooting and standing guard duty at the killing site at Ponary.
Further changes came by summer’s end with Lithuania being transferred from military control to civilian control and administered under Rosenberg’s Eastern administration as part of the Ostland. This new structure allowed Himmler’s forces to remain active but not under the authority of the civilian government. (Arad, Ghetto in Flames, pp 82-84) EK9 departed Lithuania at the end of July. At the same time Gebietskommissar Hingst was installed to run the city government in Vilnius, replacing military governor Zehnpfenning.*
It was in early August that EK3 came to the area, with about 30 Security Police and SD men stationed in Vilnius by 9 August. (Ghetto in Flames, p 89) The Lithuanian paramilitary units now answered to the Security Police and SD in Vilnius, reporting to the Gestapo in Vilnius; the Gestapo man in charge during the time covered by Jager’s report was Schweinberger. Thus, Lithuanian militiaman First Lieutenant Lukoschos reported to and took direction from Schweinberger; second in command of the Shaulists was Second Lieutenant Norvaisas. The local police, commanded by Iskauskas, reported into the German police (and helped in the roundups and ghetto-formation process that were part of the events of early September 1941) (Ghetto in Flames, pp 90-91) Schweinberger’s role in roundups of Jews and organizing the division of tasks between Germans and Lithuanians was observed by Jews in Vilnius. (Herman Kruk, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania, pp 122-123; Mark Dworzecki, from Yiddish book Yerushalayim D’Lita in Kamf un Umkum: “The majority were Lithuanian fascists. We called them ‘Ypatingas’ [chosen]. Their office was at 12 Vilna Street. They were admitted into service by Gestapo Officer Schweinenberg.”)
Sakowicz’s observations included his seeing how the division of labor played out, with Germans dealing with plans and disposal of property of the victims and like while the Lithuanian units did the grunt work. In this vein, Sakowicz explained how Lithuanians robbed the Jews’ belongings: “For the Germans 300 Jews are 300 enemies of humanity; for the Lithuanians they are 300 pairs of shoes, trousers, and the like.” In August, after Jager's EK3 had taken over, Sakowicz described how one victim resisted and “struck a German with a bottle on the temple,” as the German took the man’s belongings: “Since August 22 the Germans have been taking the valuables from the man condemned to death.” (p 19) The next day Sakowicz noted that “a few Germans” brought “12 Jewish women, young ones I believe” to the Ponary forest for execution. Citing a local priest, he explained that during executions of Jewish women that day, one group “was liquidated not by the Shaulists but by the Germans.” (p 21) About the early September action, discussed above, Sakowicz wrote that the shooting squad and perimeter guards were Lithuanians (p 28) who carried out the action at the behest of the Germans, specifically mentioning the threat made by Hingst (p 29), the German-installed city administrator who had issued a warning to “the entire Jewish community” of Vilnius. (Yitzhak Arad, The Holocaust in the USSR, p 145)
Sakowicz recorded during later months how "Gestapo" men or other "Germans" would accompany the trucks carrying the shooters as they drove from Vilnius to Ponary (p 54, 61, 66-67) and how Germans were at the shooting site while “Lithuanians" did the shooting (pp 57, 61-62). He also described how Germans intervened when they caught Lithuanians looting the goods of the murdered Jews, which in principle belonged to the Reich. (pp 62, 64) One day in early 1943 Sakowicz observed how at Ponary “the Germans were shooting with the submachine guns and the Lithuanians with rifles.” (p 66)
The notion that the Germans didn't oversee murder operations in Lithuania during 1941 is simply risible - that's partly the point of Jäger's report, after all, to explain his successful program management.
On mass graves in Lithuania, for example, I'll just add 2 references to what has been posted previously in this thread:
Document no. 125 in Documents Accuse, pp 259-260, is a report of 30 July 1942 by the Public Health Board of the District of Vilnius (No. 1150) made to the Gebietskommissar of Vilnius, concerning "Interment of corpses and carcasses." It reads in part that
This was an area where witnesses reported frequent mass executions of Jews.
Doc 239, medical officer of Trakai district
(Sakowicz's diary too describes his own examination of the mass graves at Ponary.)
